General tips
A little bonus Now and then, there are flying birds across the screen. Some of them carry a bag. Tapping them brings you an additional 3 coins and 1 food. Also, on occasion there is a mole that pops up out of a random spot on the ground. Tapping it brings you an additional 1 gold coin. Tapping it a second time brings you an additional 2 gold coins. Tapping it a third time brings you additional 3 gold coins. Total 6 gold coins. Getting rich fast Build all three basic Wooden houses at the beginning and upgrade them to level 4 before following the quests. That way you will always have enough money to plant food or build new buildings. Also upgrade the Research Station to level 3 at minimum if not level 4 to max out all "free coins" that you can get. When the other houses become available at certain player level, buy and work on those. Make space whenever possible If you need wood, clear thorns or chop trees rather than using the Sawmill. The advantage is that although the wood costs more food, you can use the free space for new buildings. Also, each cleared spot brings some experience points. Build in advance If you produce something in a building you will have to collect it when it is finished. To save time and storage space, start production but do not collect. That way the product will be ready when needed and does not need storage. The fourth worker - David the Scientist David is a scientist who becomes available as a worker during the main quest. Keep pushing the main quest at the beginning. After you blast the spider cave, you will get to deal with Weiss at his radio shack where he has you buy a hearing aid battery for Diana who lost her hearing, and then have to clear some windbreaks. The web itself is at the Liberators quest which gives 70 stars as a reward. All of this takes place just north of the corner of the pyramid. In the original version, the game started with four workers and this quest yielded a fifth. But currently players begin with two workers, adding Diana as the third during the tutorial, so that David would become the fourth worker. Go to the limit If you need a type of building, try to build as many of them as possible. That way you will be able to work further in advance. And your island ranking will increase with every building. Upgrade your Infrastructure During the game will be asked to buy a buoy, lantern, windmill, breakwater, solar panel, lighthouse, submarine and lounge chair. You will be asked to upgrade these items always in the same order all up to level 4. It is suggested that you try and upgrade two or three at a time. Doing this will lead to faster production of XP stars, which will allow you to level up faster. Since you know the order, you can also pre-plan on the next upgrade(s). This "quest" also lets you logically build up and upgrade your buildings when they are going to be useful. Keep all workers busy Obviously, if all your workers are at work at all time you will progress faster. Try to have at least 1 worker producing food. If you are going to do the timed quests on other islands, you may need 1 worker available so don't lock all your workers on long-term tasks. Do jobs at once You will often get a quest like "Remove x whatever". Checkout what one removal needs then gather all resources needed for all x removals. When ready, do all x removal at once. This way you will have more workers up gathering resources, which is faster than clearing each one at a time. Watching videos (mobile app) If you are playing Island Experiment on a mobile app, you may occasionally get options to watch commercial videos to speed up the processing time. These activate on tasks that take from 2-9 minutes, and will consume your WiFi or cellular data. The watch video option lasts for about 3-8 videos so they are useful if you're building up resources like Irite (7 minutes) or building up a Battery (9 minutes). Recognize which quests are long-term or practically forever-term The main quest will continue to feed you tasks to do, so it is a good guideline on how to proceed. There's a building infrastructure quest that helps you logically place new buildings and upgrades. At some point after meeting Mumumba, you get offered a bonus quest involving collecting from the Mustard bush that should open up some areas. The Warehouse and Golden dragon upgrading tasks are disguised as quests, but they are actually long-term ones that are on its own path (e.g. You've upgraded Warehouse to level 5? Great, now you get to upgrade to level 6) Quests away from island You may occasionally be asked to start timed quests on other islands. Usually that just requires one worker, although some quests have their own worker. Be sure to collect the resources that are released regularly during those timed quests, especially the "Free gifts" and the ones that replenish your food and items that are consumed by encountering obstacles. If you are going for the 3-star rating or trying to finish all the quests within the island, you may have to spend gems or money to expedite the process.